LMAO. How on earth do those differences warrant a JOLE -> QJE
The real outrageous thing is that the JOLE predated the cop1cat QJE by two years...
Bailey et al. (published in a JOLE special issue) discusses the paper as follows:
The results for employment in the reference week provide a direct comparison to Derenoncourt and Montialoux (2019), who use employment in the reference week conditional on labor-force participation as their primary outcome. In addition, their preferred specification does not control for state-by-birth cohort
or gross state product, which Table 2 demonstrates are important in accounting for differential skill and economic growth in more affected states. Similar to our findings, Derenoncourt and Montialoux (2019) report that the 1966 FLSA had no detectable effect for employment in the reference week.
Im not from the field; and I do not want to go into mob-like thoughts on this. but is there anyone knowledgeable that can offer a rebuttal? and explain how important differences between the papers that may warrant the difference in outlets?
To sum up, a paper claiming that MW reduced the racial wage gap while not causing employment losses among black people is published in the QJE, while the appendix of a contemporaneous paper shows that by adding just a few very reasonable changes to the specification of Derenoncourt et al it appears that employment losses among black people were significant instead. Tells a lot about how a powerful group of the profession likes to push this "MW are heaven" story nowadays.
Not contemporaneous, Bailey predates.